


Disquietude

by unlessitshouldbewithyou



Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-10
Updated: 2015-02-10
Packaged: 2018-03-11 13:22:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3328172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unlessitshouldbewithyou/pseuds/unlessitshouldbewithyou
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One-shot. Carmilla struggles to cope with her traumatic past and her burgeoning feelings for Laura.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Disquietude

The floor shifted from underneath her as a heavy body collided with hers. The lidded eyes didn’t register the hurried apology from the drunken frat boy, she just kept moving through the crowded dance floor, desperate and panicked. 

Carmilla didn’t need to breathe, not really, it was just a habit, some cursory human habit that she had never quite managed to shake. But the act of living and breathing had never felt so necessary to her than since her death. Despite all the vestiges of life that had been left to her; the ability to walk, run, eat, talk, even the blood in her veins, none were quite so sweet as the rattling intake of the first breath in the morning.

So when it all became too much, as it often did, when she could feel the blood filling up her mouth and her fingernails scratching away at the inside of a rotten coffin, when she could see nothing but darkness and taste nothing but rancid in her throat, she ran, and breathed. That was her mantra, just run and breathe. Run far away and capture the air in your lungs, see the stars and everything will be okay. As long as you have those things. 

She burst out through the nearest fire exit she could find, letting the door slam shut behind her and mute the pounding bass slightly. The cool night air enveloped her, calming her and sobering her slightly. The rooftop she had emerged onto was empty and vast and high, so she placed her almost empty vodka bottle on the floor, and laid down to gaze at the stars.

The stars were the only thing that convinced her she wasn’t still trapped in that coffin. She had spent so many nights on rooftops just looking at them that she could recall their patterns and constellations easily from memory. When she closed her eyes, there they were on the inside of her eyelids, serving as a reminder of her freedom. In 1944, after decades of silence and darkness, the great boom of a mine explosion six feet above her had broken her reverie, cracked her coffin lid in half and provided her escape from the blackness. She had emerged from the ground, gaunt, red and dripping, but the stars were the first thing to greet her, twinkling, bright and full of life despite the madness of death happening directly under them. They signalled the end of an era, and the beginning of a new one. 

Carmilla stayed there on that rooftop, sipping vodka from the bottle, until the stars had long since disappeared, and the sun was rising serenely on the horizon, casting an orange glow over her pale skin. Eventually she stumbled back to her dorm room across campus, just as the morning dew was beginning to melt. The vodka always helped her forget, however briefly, the atrocities that had been done to her, but it made her foolish and clumsy. She collapsed into her dorm room and tripped on a stray shoe, falling gracelessly and loudly to the floor, where she curled into a ball with the intention of sleeping. It wasn’t until she was just dozing off that she felt a hand lightly brushing across her face. 

“Carm” Laura whispered gently so as not to startle her. “Carmilla, get up, come on let’s get you into bed.”

Laura began unlacing Carmilla’s boots, knowing that she would never take them off on her own. Carmilla merely grunted grumpily in reply, and Laura couldn’t help but smile at the adorableness of the whole situation. This wasn’t the first time she had helped a drunken Carmilla to bed, and each time she found it oddly endearing. A centuries old creature of the night, displaying such human tendencies, at these times she could almost imagine her being 18 years old and partying like a normal college kid. Except Laura had surmised quite some time ago that Carmilla wasn’t drinking for the fun of it, but for the necessity of it. 

After her boots had been discarded, Laura began unbuttoning Carmilla’s leather pants. At this, Carmilla cracked open one bleary eye and said sleepily, “If you wanted to get me into bed you could have just asked, Cutie.”

Laura rolled her eyes, but still managed to blush. That was just something she had never quite gotten control of around Carmilla, despite the endless inappropriate comments and lack of boundaries. 

Carmilla caught a whiff of Laura’s shampoo as she helped her off the floor, her soft hands guiding her gently, before tucking her in with her yellow pillow. She was ethereal, Carmilla thought, with the early morning light reflecting on her smooth skin, hair still wet from the shower, and eyes smiling at her with such affection. 

Laura sometimes looked at her like she was the whole world.

“I wish you would be more careful when you go out at night ya dumb dumb.” Laura said, chastising.

Carmilla didn’t reply, she just let Laura kiss her sweetly on the forehead before she left for her English lit class.

As she door shut firmly behind her, she tried not to cry, she really did, but it didn’t work. The weak moments were always reserved for when she was alone, in the quiet. She had been having a lot of those lately. The sheer romanticism and frustration of it all made her want to scream until she couldn’t anymore. God, it had been so easy to shut off her human emotions after her death, so easy to fill herself with hatred and malice, and to neglect herself from love. And then Laura had come along and ruined it all, she was truly a force of good, a true, beautiful soul. Something so pure that Carmilla was afraid to touch because she knew she would destroy it.

But Laura had made it so difficult for her, with her good intentions and little human nuances, shy glances at her from the corner of the room and her sweet, innocent smile.

Later that afternoon, Carmilla awoke to a glass of blood on the desk, and an unopened pack of cookies, with a note that simply said ‘For the hangover! :) x’. She smiled, despite herself, and tried to forget that Laura was the only person in the world who had never treated her like she was a monster.

**Author's Note:**

> Follow me on tumblr at unlessitshouldbewithyou for Hollstein trash


End file.
